FAIRHOPE, Ala. — While many were commemorating the 40th anniversary of the Woodstock Music & Art Fair where thousands of young people gathered to tune out and turn on, dozens of others were stepping out and logging on Tuesday (Aug. 11) at two forums about social networking.

Once considered a toy for teens, Web sites like Twitter, Facebook and MySpace are being embraced by more and more tech-savvy adults as a way to get out their message to the masses.

“We think it is the ultimate conversation tool for businesses and individuals to be using,” said Angela Rand, University of South Alabama Baldwin County head of information services. “They’re already talking to family and friends, and they’re ordering online. We wanted to give them the information to make them smarter social networking consumers.”

The Baldwin County Joint Social Networking Conference, hosted by USABC, was sponsored by the Alabama Gulf Coast Chamber of Commerce, Alabama Gulf Coast Convention and Visitors Bureau, Baldwin County Economic Development Alliance, Central Baldwin Chamber of Commerce, Eastern Shore Chamber of Commerce, North Baldwin Chamber of Commerce and the South Baldwin Chamber of Commerce.

Moderators discussed a number of topics during separate morning and afternoon sessions, including various Google services such as Web-visit analytics and online document creation and storage; the popular social networks best suited for business use; photo and video sharing sites like Flickr and YouTube; and how to use such sites to improve marketing.

Reaching out is easier than ever. Rand said, “Now we don’t have to be on their address book or on the phone. Twitter (for example) is a viral index to the Internet. The old Web was static. Now they have smart phones with Internet connections. This is what we call the new read/write Web.”

She pointed out that Twitter’s creators built the microblogging platform, but it was users who realized its full potential, adding, “Twitter scrambled to keep up.”

Recent slowdowns and outages of both Twitter and Facebook due to denial of service attacks illustrate that both need more robust servers, Rand said.

The site overloads were allegedly caused by Russian hackers hoping to silence a Georgian dissident by pirating access on tens of thousands of home computers. Ganging up on a vulnerable site in such a way often results in the Web sites crashing, and these incidents unnerved regular users.

April Boone, a consultant with Global Marketing Solutions in Foley, said, “Social marketing is a growing opportunity to allow conversations between business and consumers.”

She explained that although some use the Internet social sites to merely talk about simple things like something tasty they had for lunch, positive word of mouth can effectively be used by owners of their favorite restaurants to link in and offer specials to those who read the recommendations.

“A large percentage of adults have (online) profiles,” Boone said. “Do you know what they’re saying? Do you have an authentic voice?”

Boone said businesses need to develop an online presence suited to their budget. Although commercial use of many of the social networks is free (they do charge for banner advertising), there is an in-house personnel expense because someone must be designated to keep a profile fresh.

“Internal or outsource?” Boone asked. “Who has the skill set? How does it blend with their other responsibilities?”

The return on a relatively minor investment can be impressive. She said social networking is a proven method for increasing Web site visits as well as traffic into brick and mortar locations. It also serves as a way to mitigate negative feedback and reward loyal customers.

“Don’t set up an account, put your name on it and just walk away,” Boone said. “Also set a policy for what is Tweeted (Twitter speak for messages). Decide how to address complaints and other negativity. People will tell you what they’re thinking.”

Also serving as conference moderators were Paula Webb, government and reference document librarian at USA’s main campus in Mobile; Ellen Wilson, an instructional technology and reference librarian at USA Mobile; Kathy Wheeler, a librarian at USA in Mobile; and Andrea Wright, technical and resource librarian at the USA Biomedical Library.